What Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science/Research and Allied Professions Graduates Earn

Median earnings at 1, 4, and 5 years (College Scorecard)

Nothing on this page is a survey response or a recruiter's claim: the $68,822 year-one median and the $78,486 year-five median for Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science/Research and Allied Professions come from federal earnings records pooled across 335 bachelor's programs. The headline median weights programs by graduates counted (4,687 at year one); the second column is the unweighted median program, printed so the method stays visible.

Earnings in this field climb $9,664 between the first and fifth year, a 14% rise that beats the all-fields pattern (the median field in this dataset pays $45,010 at year one and $65,763 at year five). Early-career growth this shape usually means the first job is a foothold: licensure, a portfolio, or a first promotion does the heavy lifting.

One more cut of the year-one data: Pell recipients in Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science/Research and Allied Professions post a median of $60,106, non-recipients $69,021. That $8,915 gap is the distance between two different student populations studying under one field name, and it narrows or widens by institution, which the program table below hints at.

Inside its own CIP family, Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science/Research and Allied Professions ranks 3 of 14 published bachelor's fields by five-year earnings; the family median at that horizon is $64,868. Its closest sibling is Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions at $74,535, below this field's $78,486. Family comparisons strip out the broad field effect and leave the specific program choice exposed.

Ranked across all 182 published fields, Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science/Research and Allied Professions stands number 53 by five-year earnings and number 34 by first-year earnings, and number 112 from the lowest median debt. Those three ranks together are the field's fingerprint: high earn rank with a low debt rank is the combination students are actually shopping for, and this field's spread between them is 59 places.

The debt side of the same degree

Debt first, because earnings get the headlines: $21,500 is the median federal loan balance at graduation in Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science/Research and Allied Professions, pooled from 62 reporting programs. Against year-one earnings of $68,822 that balance is 31% of a year's gross pay, roughly 3.7 months of it. The standard 10-year repayment at 6.52% (the 2026-27 undergraduate Direct Loan rate) runs $244 a month and $7,822 in total interest. Your own balance and rate belong in the student loan payoff calculator; the degree-level verdict belongs in the college ROI calculator and the college major ROI calculator.

Where graduates of this field earn the most

Where a student studies inside this field matters at least as much as the field itself. These five programs post the strongest five-year medians in Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science/Research and Allied Professions among programs with at least 30 graduates in the count, led by Loma Linda University at $121,298, against a national field median of $78,486.

Treat the top of this table as a research list, not a ranking to enroll by: medians reflect local labor markets and student mix as much as teaching. The honest comparison pairs each program's earnings here with its net price from the net price estimator and its four-year total from the degree cost calculator.

Two more facts about the shape of this field: the five highest-paying programs in the table account for only 5.0% of the 3,997 graduates counted at five years, so the top of the table is a thin slice and not the field's center; and the leading program's five-year median of $121,298 sits 55% above the national field median of $78,486. Its median debt, $20,000, runs below the field median of $21,500, which is the trade a student at the top of this table is actually being offered.